The DOW is down about 80 again today so far.

Quote:
Now, for the good news: You know exactly where your money is going. It's going to me. How often do you get to know exactly who benefits from your tax dollars? How often do you get to talk to the beneficiaries of your forced generosity? Now, you know exactly where your money is going. I promise you that it's going to fund a good cause. In fact, I can think of no better cause where this money could be spent.

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:
JIMV, when did you sell and relocate to that tax friendly state?

Put my Maine house on the market in Dec 2006. Sold in May and took Amtrack's Empire Builder west in June 2007. Been here since.

Saved $4K in state and local taxes the first year.

Did you not like living in Maine?

If someone said they'd pay me an extra 4K per year to live in Idaho, Utah, or Wyoming, I'd decline the offer. Not that they aren't fine places, I just like being closer to the ocean and the big city.

No flames intended at all.

Maine was all scenery, and the folk who got to view it all came from away because no natives could afford to live there. Go to any seaside community or town with lakefront and you would be hard pressed to find many folk born in Maine. They call the phenomenon 'the two Maines'. Years ago it meant that folk above the Volvo line (Augusta north) lived in small towns with poor wages and substandard services while those south drove Volvo's and Saabs, had jobs that paid at least a modest wage, and got the lions share of state services. By the time I had left the Volvo line had moved a good bit south as companies were taxed out of state, health care became too expensive to have on ones modest salaries, and the only growth industry in the entire state was government...remember, 1 wage earner in 6 got a pay check directly from government and another got it laundered as a contractor or private company employee working for a company that survived off government.

I have lived all over the world and in a score of states and KNEW that there were other places as pretty that cost a LOT less. I was also approaching retirement and Maine taxes almost every dime of ones retirement income while most states don't.

So, I had a choice, stay in Maine and become gradually poorer and more dependent on government to survive or move to a free and prosperous place and live better.

It was a no brainer for me. It is no disgrace to be poor but it is not a great privilege either. To me a good life style was more than waiting by the post box once a month for my government handout to arrive....besides, my Maine taxes doubled in under a decade and my income sure hadn't. All I could see as far into the future as I could see was a grasping and increasingly desperate state and local government looting me and then stealing my house for taxes when I reach real old age.